What Give You The Right...?

What Give You The Right...? - Midwest Conservative Journal posts today on a subject much on my mind lately: The continued creep of many mainstream Christian churches into politics and away from theology.

MCJ's writer is an Episcopal. Or a soon-to-be ex-Episcopal, anyway. The writer points out a series of logical and theological inconsistencies in the Episcopal Church's views, and notes:

"[Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop] Frank Griswold demands multilateralism in the first situation and dismisses it in the second. George W. Bush must listen to and take the counsel of the rest of the world. Episcopalians, on the other hand, don't have to consider what the rest of the Anglican world thinks or says or does about anything. The Episcopal Church delights in pointing the mote in the eyes of others while denying the existence of the beam in its own.

The reason for this is simple. The liberal wing of the Episcopal Church has no abiding principles of any kind. None. It is certainly not motivated by the Bible. When the Scriptures get in its way, they are higher criticized out of its way. It is not motivated by any allegiance to tradition. And, given the decisive vote against it at the last Lambeth Conference, it is certainly not motivated by denominational loyalty.

The Episcopal Church has become an entirely political organization pursuing entirely political goals. It will say whatever it thinks it has to say, even if it flatly contradicts something it said a month ago. And it has about as much interest in the afterlife as the Unitarians."

I'm a Presbyterian, which is to Scotland what the Episcopals/Anglicans are to the English. They share certain traditions - and, in the US, they share an institutional leadership that is far to the left, and becoming more politicized by the day.

I was confirmed in the Presbyterian Church in ninth grade. In college, I took a solid two years to figure out exactly what I believed, and where and how I wanted to observe that belief - and ended up back in the Presbyterian Church. The church's beliefs are very simple, commonsensical, and tack no human dogma onto Christ's message; it is, in its way, the most fundamental of the denominations. Christ saved us. Go forth and live like you know it. What else is there?

But the church's General Assembly - the world governing body - is forever driving leftward. They heavily support the World Council of Churches. They're relentlessly PC; I can seen them following the Episcopals in recognizing gay marriage (for which I can find legal and civil, but no theological, justification, indicating to me it has no place in a church that actually practices critical theology).

My local congregation is actually worse. The pastor himself is a good enough guy (Presbyterians place a high value on good speaking - which I'm sure was one of the reasons that my speech-teacher father took us out of the dull, mumbling Lutheran congregation when I was 11), but there's a PC undertone that rankles me badly. And the assistant pastor uses her homilies and occasional sermons as a platform for anti-administration, America-last propaganda - and not just when there's something for an anti-American to talk about! No, she'll squeeze japes about the North Koreans we're starving into the call to communion!

So while I'm in the Presbyterian Church for reasons that are important enough to largely surpass human folly, I have my limits. I'm thinking about starting to look elsewhere.

So I may just blog about the Church Search as it goes along here.

Posted by Mitch at August 5, 2003 05:33 AM